Competitive Balance Lottery Results

Baseball’s first Competitive Balance Lottery took place in New York City today. The lottery, which allocates additional draft picks to small-market and low-revenue teams, provides teams with draft choices they can choose to use or trade. The Diamondbacks, Orioles, Indians, Royals, Athletics, Pirates, Padres, Rays, Reds, Rockies, Marlins, Brewers and Cardinals were eligible to obtain draft picks. The Tigers were also eligible, though only for the group of selections that takes place after the second round. Here are the results, via MLB.com:

Selections Between First & Second Rounds (Round A)

Royals

Pirates

Diamondbacks

Orioles

Reds

Marlins

Selections After Second Round (Round B)

Padres

Indians

Rockies

Athletics

Brewers

Tigers

The Rays and Cardinals did not receive a pick in either of the Competitive Balance Lottery Rounds.

That seems beyond fair to the point of obvious. It’s hardly “balancing” the competition if we’re giving a recent World Series winner extra picks 😛 (Especially one of the three teams since the strike to have won MULTIPLE titles.)

I would extend it to the playoffs. I really don’t like this rule because it artificially gives certain teams an advantage because they are lower markets.
There should also be a rule based on payroll, the tigers payroll is 132M, Cards are at 110M. And the reds gave votto 20M. Teams that have that sort of money should not be given extra picks. The rays are doing just fine, they really shouldn’t be given extra picks.

What exactly constitutes any of these teams as falling under the category of small market or low revenue?? The Tigers are in Detroit. Kind of a big city. The Cardinals don’t appear to be struggling having won their 11th title last year, and St. Louis isn’t exactly Kansas City… Same could be said about Cleveland… I do love the Pirates getting pick #2, they are low revenue and in first place and have the NL MVP! Diamondbacks play in Phoenix and have been buyers… Marlins just spent a boatload of money although they don’t draw anyone lol… Curious? What makes a team qualify for this?? And does it reflect current or past years?

The picks are divided into two groups — six picks at the end of the first round, six more at the end of the second. The first group of picks are given out among teams with the 10 smallest markets or 10 lowest revenues. That includes 13 teams: D-backs, Orioles, Indians, Royals, A’s, Pirates, Padres, Rays, Reds, Rockies, Marlins, Brewers and Cardinals.
Six of those 13 teams will end up with a pick. The other seven teams will enter the lottery for the second group of picks. By rule, teams who receive revenue sharing money and aren’t located among the top 15 markets are also added to that mix. Only one team qualifies this year under those rules — the Tigers. Detroit barely falls outside the top 15 markets, but it does, and the Tigers apparently received a little bit of revenue sharing money last year.
The Tigers will be one of eight teams vying for six picks, so their chances are pretty good. That said, teams’ chances are higher or lower based on their winning percentage last season. So the Tigers’ best shot is if teams like the Royals, Pirates, Padres and Orioles win picks in the first round, pitting Detroit against teams like Milwaukee, St. Louis and Tampa Bay in the second round.

It’s because they received some revenue sharing money and aren’t one of the top 15 markets, but of course that does not answer the question of why the heck a team with a payroll that exceeded $100,000,000 last year would have received a dime of revenue sharing money.

Because the 80 mill some of these teams get in profit sharing money isn’t good enough. All this will do is cause the same teams to grow these prospects and flip them when their rookie contracts expire and start all over again. Implement a hard cap and base (160 mill-80mill) and you will see more talent spread across the league.

Would a team with talented young players that make near the minimum due to service time be required to spend money on unnecessary veterans to avoid penalty for not meeting the minimum pay scale?
There definitely needs to be a requirement that a certain percentage of revenue sharing be used to improve the onfield product.

Maybe a good idea, but it’ll never be agreed to by certain teams (you know who I’m talking about). I think cory’s suggestion is the more plausible of the two, and I don’t see why anyone would be against it.

Damn the “Competitive Balance Lottery”, I’m a cubs fan and you guys know the history. I’m not looking for sympathy or lottery picks but I do believe the Rays, Padres, Royals, Padres, A’s should get picks. Maybe Brewers, Mariners, and Pirates (they are also on the low end of market and don’t have BIG TV money).

To all of the people complaining about the Tigers getting a pick, need to get a better own. MI is a great owner that has actually lost money in a cpl of years because of our payroll. However, he is older and a billionaire and has probably recovered money in other years but he is willing to spend the money because he wants to bring a WS win to Detroit. Once MI passes on the business don’t be shocked to see the Tigers return to mid level payroll and farm development.

Detroit Metro is the 11th largest in the nation. IT IS NOT a small market by any standards. They have 3X as many people as Milwaukie does. The city is pretty poor, but many of the suburbs are very wealthy. Is no different than many other cities.

I don’t mind a bit of revenue sharing money if it helps teams retain stars, but to give the team extra draft picks just because they don’t put together a good enough team to draw fans is a joke. This cba is making it harder for alot of clubs to grow a farm system, further encouraging free agent spending.

I actually would have like to see a limit on the # of years a free agent can sign for. I really don’t like that teams have to sign players for 10 year to get them to sign.

“to give the team extra draft picks just because they don’t put together a good enough team to draw fans is a joke”

If that were true you would be right, but teams like the Rays have been consistently putting good teams on the field and not drawing fans. Further, think about what “draw fans” really means. If you’re the Yankees and you want to sell 40,000 tickets to a game, that amounts to 0.4% of the CITY’S population (nevermind the surrounding area). Roughly one in every two hundred people. For a team like, say, Kansas City, to draw that exact same crowd, they need 8.6% of the city to turn out — 17 out of every 200 people. That’s a HUGE difference. Then, imagine that they actually manage to draw the same number of fans — income levels in New York are significantly higher than Missouri, so they wouldn’t be able to charge anything close to the same amount and thus STILL wouldn’t have comparable payrolls. And we haven’t even talked about television deals. Things like market size are big issues.

Now in some cases, relocation might be the right answer. Some markets can’t or simply won’t support a MLB franchise, and to be fair I think the Rays are one of those teams. But to suggest the issue is not creating a good enough product to draw fans is far too simplified.

Not to say that this system doesn’t still leave me scratching my head. A team with a $100MM payroll should NOT be receiving an extra pick. I think they were trying to help low-payroll teams without actually making the criteria payroll because that is open to gamesmanship, so they tied it to revenue and market as a proxy. I haven’t given much thought to a better solution but there are some definite issues with the list this system came up with.

The Cardinals? Really? Then again the Orioles can’t be that far behind..
The O’s are an $84 to $86 Million dollar team (for ’11 & ’12) while
the Cards are a $109 to $111 million dollar team… Why the Cards
though? They’re over the century mark for payroll, have a HUGE fan base
and never seem to be strapped for anything… The fact that the
cardinals are in this lottery makes no sense to me..

The Cards are 9th out of 32 teams in total payroll in 2012… The
Marlins are 7th on this list… The teams mentioned (above and with the
exception of the Marlins, Cardinals and, thanks to the 2nd round
stipulation Detroit, who’s 5th on this list) all fit as sub par
financial teams but there are a slew of teams that are lower payroll
value teams under the Brewers (who are highest on this list besides
Detroit and St. Louis)..

What about these teams? The Brewers are at $97.6 million while the
following teams don’t appear to have been included on this “Competitive
Balance Lottery” system.. Why is Houston not a team in the lottery?
What about Washington (I know they’re great this year but they are STILL
a small market team)? Seattle? And why not Chicago WS since they have
to split Chicago with the Cubs? It’s not like only one MLB team set up
shop in Chicago.. If there were two teams in Boston (on New England at
least) I’d consider the 2nd team as a small market team too (until they
unseat Boston – if that were to happen)..

This lottery doesn’t make as much sense as I thought it was suppose to..
I am probably missing some data or MLB is being a little too selective
and helping their “Buddy” teams..